Unidentified objects were dropped 10 miles from the coast frozen of Alaska late on Friday afternoon. US authorities announced but the details of the object are not available.
It was two times US aircraft had destroyed an object within a matter of a few days after the shooting down of the suspected Chinese satellite off of the coasts in South Carolina last Saturday.
The balloon, which officials haven’t described as balloons was shot down around 1:45 p.m. in the Eastern Standard Time according to Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder.
“[I]t came inside our territorial waters – and those waters right now are frozen – but inside territorial airspace and over territorial waters,” National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby told reporters on Friday. “Fighter aircraft assigned to US Northern Command took down the object within last hour.”
In an interview on Friday afternoon the President Joe Biden stated to CNN, “It was a success.”
Here’s a look back at the information we have to date.
Many questions remain
As per Kirby, Biden was first informed of the incident on Thursday night “soon as the Pentagon had enough information.” The object “did not appear to be self-maneuvering,” Kirby stated.
It’s not known what the object’s appearance is or from where it came from. In a statement on Friday Ryder stated that it had been travelling north-east across Alaska. He refused to provide any physical description, but only noting the balloon is “about the size of a small car” and “not similar in size or shape” to the Chinese surveillance balloon that crashed from the coastline from South Carolina on February 4.
“We’re calling this an object because that’s the best description we have right now,” Kirby declared. “We don’t know who owns it – whether it’s state-owned or corporate-owned or privately-owned, we just don’t know.”
Object first detected Thursday
F-35 fighter jets were sent to look into the matter after it was first noticed on Thursday According to an US official.
There was no major worry about the possibility of damage to people or property if the balloon was destroyed, which was the primary reason that the Chinese observation balloon was permitted to fly across the continent of US this week.
Ryder stressed that the authorities aren’t aware of the origin of the craft which didn’t appear to be operated by a person and was destroyed due to the fact that it was the risk of posing a “reasonable threat to civilian air traffic” because it flew at 4000 feet.
Kirby reported to media that first fly-by by of US fighter aircraft took place on Thursday night and the second one occurred on Friday morning. Both flights returned “limited” information about the object.
Ultimately, the object was downed near the Canadian border and northeastern Alaska by a F-22 fighter jet out of Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, equipped with an AIM-9X – the same aircraft and missile used to take down the surveillance balloon. A US official claimed that the military was waiting to shoot the balloon down in daylight hours in order to allow pilots to see the object. Ryder stated that the mission had been “supported with aerial assets from the Alaska Air National Guard.”
The Alaska National Guard and units under US Northern Command, along with HC-130 Hercules, HH-60 Pave Hawk as well as CH-47 Chinook are all participating in the search to find this object Ryder said.
No connection is apparent to the Chinese balloon
Officials have not given any information that suggests the object is in any way connected to that of the Chinese surveillance balloon that went down over the weekend. The debris of which is being recovered from the Atlantic Ocean floor.
Ryder stated the recovery team on Friday “mapped the debris field” and are “in the process of searching for and identifying debris on the ocean floor.”
“While I won’t go into specifics due to classification reasons,” Ryder stated, “I can say that we have located a significant amount of debris so far that will prove helpful to our further understanding of this balloon and its surveillance capabilities.”
If lessons learned from China’s balloon were helpful in identifying the craft that crashed to Alaska, Ryder said it was “a little bit of apples and oranges.”
The balloon did not appear to be equipped with the surveillance apparatus, as per an US official This would make it much smaller and probably less advanced in comparison to the Chinese balloon.
